Is Romeo and Juliet a True Story? Sources and Real Verona
No. There is no historical record that Romeo and Juliet lived, and historians generally treat them as fictional. Shakespeare took the plot from an English poem of 1562, which came from earlier Italian tales.
The feuding families, however, were real: the Montecchi and Cappelletti are mentioned by Dante.
| Source | Year | What it added |
|---|---|---|
| Masuccio Salernitano | 1476 | An earlier tale of star-crossed lovers |
| Luigi da Porto | About 1530 | Verona, the feuding families, a masked ball |
| Matteo Bandello | 1554 | Retold da Porto's tale |
| Pierre Boaistuau | 1559 | French translation of Bandello |
| Arthur Brooke | 1562 | English poem, Shakespeare's main source |
| William Shakespeare | About 1594-96 | The play |
Where did the story come from?
The tale of two young lovers parted by their families is older than Shakespeare. A story of lovers who die by mistake appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe.
The version Shakespeare knew goes back to Italy. Masuccio Salernitano published a story of star-crossed lovers in 1476. Luigi da Porto retold it around 1530 and set it in Verona, with the feuding Montecchi and Cappelletti, a masked ball, and characters named Marcuccio, Thebaldo and Friar Lorenzo. Matteo Bandello wrote a new version in 1554. A French translation by Pierre Boaistuau came next, and in 1562 Arthur Brooke turned it into an English poem of about 3,000 lines. William Painter published a prose version in 1567.
Shakespeare followed Brooke closely. He changed the details that matter: he made Juliet younger and compressed the story into a few days.
↑ Back to the topDid da Porto say it was true?
Da Porto presented his tale as true, claiming he had heard it from a soldier. Most scholars regard it as literary fiction, with the claim of truth serving as a storytelling device.
↑ Back to the topWere the Montagues and Capulets real?
In a sense, yes. The Montecchi and Cappelletti were real factions in medieval Italy. Dante mentions them in Canto VI of the Purgatorio, in the early 14th century, as an example of feuding in Italy's cities. Dante does not tell a love story about them, and nothing in his lines connects them to the lovers.
↑ Back to the topIs Juliet's house in Verona real?
Verona has a house called the Casa di Giulietta, with a balcony, that is one of its main tourist attractions. The building is a 13th-century house that belonged to the Dal Cappello family, whose name resembles Cappelletti. The city bought it in the 1930s, restored it, and added the balcony, using 14th-century marble from a museum store.
So the house is real, but it is not the home of a real Juliet. The connection to Shakespeare's play was made much later.
↑ Back to the topMore about Romeo and Juliet
This guide covers the play only. Film and stage versions differ in places.